By STEVEN VIERA
Staff Writer
SOUTH RIVER — For police officers, standing in harm’s way is just part of the job, but one woman is taking steps to defend those who protect and serve from the sun’s rays.
Danielle Oswald, a resident of the borough and an independent consultant with a premium skin care company, is offering sunscreen protection packs to police officers to help them limit potentially harmful exposure to the sun and reduce their risk of skin cancer while in the line of duty.
As part of Operation Sunscreen, Oswald will hand-deliver care packages including one body sunscreen as well as two packs of lip-shield, which contains an SPF component, to police officers in South River and New Brunswick.
Oswald’s father was a police officer in New Brunswick for 28 years and achieved the rank of captain before retiring. He served in the Traffic Safety and Enforcement Unit, which addressed matters from crossing guards to car accidents, but due to his posting, he was often exposed to the sun’s rays.
“He was outside a lot,” she said.
Prolonged sun exposure caused Oswald’s father to develop melanoma, a form of skin cancer, in addition to metastatic prostate cancer, which eventually took his life.
According to statistics from the American Cancer Society — which Oswald cites on her blog — an estimated 76,380 new melanomas will be diagnosed and 10,130 people are expected to die of melanoma in 2016 alone.
She hopes that her care packages, however, can help limit the number of police officers who fall into these categories.
“I think it’s a great program,” South River Police Chief Mark Tinitigan said. “I think it’s great when members of the community want to give back in any which way or form, whether it’s donating to the police department or any other programs in town. I think it’s very honorable, and I think if her father was still alive, she would make him very proud.”
Oswald is only offering sunscreen protection packs in New Brunswick, where her father was a police officer, and South River, where she lives, although she may expand the program to other police departments in the future.
Each care package requires a $38 donation payable to Oswald by check or online. The donation link will change each month, but the accurate link can be found on her blog post, “Protect those who took the oath to serve and protect us,” at achangeinview.com.
For more information, contact Oswald at [email protected].
Contact Steven Viera at [email protected].